


Lip Service

by tea_petty



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angry Sex, Bathroom Sex, Blow Jobs, F/M, Masturbation, Penis In Vagina Sex, Reflection, Rough Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:13:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24873616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_petty/pseuds/tea_petty
Summary: Basch is a firm believer in how talk is cheap.
Relationships: Switzerland (Hetalia)/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Lip Service

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr; tea-pettiest

Her lover was a man of repute; he conducted his business like he did his home - with dignity and pragmatism schooling every choice as a firm hand always kept his rifle near, should he need it.

She prided herself in being the one he chose to have at his arm and in said home. While they were by no means the most affectionate couple, many had been surprised Basch had taken a companion at all, and so from this fact alone, she could distill a certain air of respect and command in a room.

That’s partly why she’d been so taken aback the day Alfred had stopped by – a client of Basch’s who was too foolhardy for him to trust with gun exports, and yet, had too much coin burning a hole in his lined pockets, to ignore completely.

Despite her lover’s distrust of this man, he’d brought him into their home – no doubt, so he could keep a close eye on him.

Neither of them had considered that just because Basch could _see_ everything that was unfolding, didn’t necessarily mean he was maintaining control over it. 

This was what she was musing as she sat on the sofa, Alfred’s arm hovering at the couch’s back, just behind her. While she had no patience for the territorial language of men, she could recognize the vague threat Alfred was making just by where his hand was. 

Basch had been exiled to the armchair off to the side, since Alfred took to sitting with his ankle on his knee, his long limbs resting comfortably in two different time zones.

“Zwingli, you know I like you,” Basch’s hand twitched at this, “and I trust your product – but I’m not paying _that_ much for pills. Do you know how much we’d have to ratchet those prices up when we resell them? 

That’s crazy – people can barely afford them now.”

She watched Basch. On the surface, his face was impassive with the cold unreadability of a still lake. 

She could see the tendons jumping out in his hand though, and the mean glimmer in his eyes.

“Then I’m afraid, Jones, that we don’t have a deal. Might I suggest paying Feliciano a visit? He might be more agreeable to your…negotiations.”

There was a parasitic quiet in the room; not only was no one speaking, but quiet things seemed to get even quieter in this tension vacuum. She couldn’t even hear the clock on the mantle anymore.

Alfred gave Basch a tight smile and sighed, shifting in his seat. 

That was like the sitting down version of preparing to throw his weight around, she thought.

Basch’s eyes snapped to Alfred’s hand at the back of the couch. 

When Alfred’s arm moved to drape lazily over her shoulders, she caught the way the vein at her lover’s temple leaped out.

“Think you could talk some sense into him, sweetheart?”

Her face flushed, and she was hyperaware of Basch’s blistering stare as it cut into her.

Of course she felt nothing for Alfred – in fact, she held him with almost similar wariness as Basch did. That being said, seldom was she called by a term of endearment. 

Really, it was seldom that she felt very ‘dear’ at all.

“Oh, well I-“

She startled as Basch cut her off with her own name. His voice was pressed and low; normal. Again, dignified, as he was.

“Yes, dear?”

“Could I have a word with you? In private?”

Immediately, something struck her about this – he rarely addressed her directly during business meetings. While he liked her to be kept in the loop, she had a rather hands-off role in it all, so he hadn’t really needed to. 

More than that, now he was excusing them from a business meeting so he could talk to her directly.

Her rational mind told her to be wary; he was probably only doing this if something was wrong. Inside though, curiosity burned on.

“Certainly.”

For a few moments, no one moved. 

Basch sent Alfred a withering look.

“Don’t mind me,” Alfred said with a toothy grin, “I’ll just be here.”

Another power move. One always had to be bigger than the other, huh? It was just a figure of speech, though she felt her cheeks burn at the thought of what she was actually comparing. 

People could take her word for it – there were no grounds to doubt Basch’s own ‘masculinity’ as it were. At least not where _that_ was concerned.

The fever inside of her burned a little more intensely at this train of thought, and she realized it wasn’t really curiosity at all. When Basch sighed and gestured for her to follow him, she rose, all the while frantically trying to dispel the thought of her lover’s body from her mind. 

She was so pre-occupied trying to appear natural, that she hadn’t even realized that Basch had led her across the room, to the bathroom tucked into the corner. Alfred didn’t seem to think it strange when Basch shut them into the bathroom, retaining his lounged posture on their sofa.

Her mind was jolted from the gutter at the sound of him locking the door behind them.

“You shouldn’t let him just put his hands all over you like that,” Basch said with surprising bite. “I thought you were smart enough to know that we can’t trust him.”

“Huh?” His anger surprised her. While he wasn’t the most affectionate of partners, he certainly wasn’t one to lash out either. If anything, his heart was a defensive fortress – not an offensive one. She saw through his temper in an instance. 

“I _don’t_ trust him,” she said firmly. “So now that that’s out of the way, why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong.”

Basch ran a hand through his hair – this also struck her, as the only physical tic she could ever reconcile with him was an itch in his finger for the trigger; he wasn’t one to have nervous or flustered fidgets. He started pacing the cramped diameter of the bathroom.

“Is it the deal? This wouldn’t be the first time he's asked for a ridiculous price.”

Basch said nothing, just kept pacing, his fingers curling and uncurling from a white-knuckled fist as if he were trying hard not to hit something.

Perhaps _that_ had been why he’d needed to get away from Alfred.

“Even if he does pull his offer, it won’t really affect us. We have a ton of clients who are after the same thing – and willing to pay more than double what he’s asking to pay,” she tried to reason with him. “Basch, darling, you have nothing to worry about.”

Suddenly he whirled on her, green eyes flashing like emerald fire.

“I-“ his face was red, and that tendon was still standing out against the alabaster of his skin.

She watched him, wide-eyed. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen him like this; a fish caught in a net, with all the anger to snap the fibers, and none of the means to.

He didn’t have the words to tell her that it wasn’t about the deal at all. 

The image of Alfred’s arm around her was seared into his memory, and with every impish flash of it in his mind, he felt his choking rage throb in his throat.

“I-“ he started again, and again, he couldn’t finish.

She was starting to worry meanwhile. Her hand came up to gently catch his cheek. Though she’d intended it to be comforting, she should’ve known by now that her touch could never be anything short of electrifying to him. 

He paused. 

For a split second she thought he was calming down, and he was – as places did when the eye of a storm was passing through.

In the next instance his lips were on hers, rough and clumsy in his anger. She was stiff against him, too surprised to grasp at him while his hands dug into her, leaving bruising touches at her arms and back as he yanked her to him.

Her chest heaved when she finally remembered to breathe again, desperate to catch up on the air she’d missed out on – the air he’d snatched from her, along with the strength in her knees.

His lips were still moving frantically against hers, demanding. 

When she started kissing him back, she thought his fervor might level out, but instead, she only seemed to feed something in him. 

His hands moved, tensing around the thin fabric of her dress and tugging. From the way his tongue pushed into her mouth, wanting her with a desperation she’d been afraid had long since died in him, it took her a few moments to realize that he was trying to undress her.

“Basch,” she whined, her hands unwittingly coming to bat his own away. 

The fire from earlier had dropped between her legs. She could already feel the crotch of her panties dampen. “He’s right out _there_.”

Basch’s hands fought through the meager defenses of her own, and she grew frustrated. Why was she even fighting him on this anyway? The thought of him ripping her dress clean off her and taking her right there was something she’d only pictured in her fantasies, and now it might actually come true.

He nipped at her bottom lip, and she wilted against him, yielding completely to the viciousness of his physicality. 

He popped the brass buttons of her dress, sending them skittering to the tile floor. The cool wash of exposure over her heated skin felt good, and though her cheeks warmed at baring herself to her lover’s critical eyes, she let her head fall back, needing whatever physical reprieve he could provide her with.

“Good,” he all but growled, “make sure you scream my name loud enough for the bastard to hear.”

Her eyes, which had since fluttered shut as he began tugging her dress down over her shoulders and down her body, snapped open. 

Her usually prudent lover, the same one that insisted on having the lights off on the rare occasion they made love, the one that still blushed when they changed and bathed in the same room, had never said anything so provocative before.

She worried at her bottom lip, which was still sore from how he’d bitten her. She didn’t want to risk throwing a wrench in such perfect works – but she also had to be sure. She loved this man; even more than she wanted for him. It was her pride – and her curse.

“You’re not…worried about business?”

Basch pulled away with a sigh and looked at her. For the first time since Alfred had arrived, she could see that sensible look to him again.

“It’s as you said – we don’t need his business.”

Her chest was still heaving, her dress open and fluttering around her. She felt small in the thin material of her bra. She must’ve looked a mess now; all disheveled and rough. If he wanted to return now, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to without Alfred immediately knowing what they’d been doing.

“But right now, I need _you_.”

At this, he tunneled his hands beneath her dress, feeling the stretch of her stockings over her curves. 

His knuckle grazed over her crotch, and even through the layers of her stockings and panties, she moaned.

Her cheeks immediately flared with warmth; her voice carried well in the bathroom, and she strongly suspected Alfred could hear them, down to the vicious rustling of fabric.

A part of her couldn’t help but recognize the novelty of the situation; usually, it was _her_ asking _him_ to come back to bed, and though there was technically no bed around…

Her hands fluttered ineffectually about him; still hesitant, but not putting force any real effort to stop him. At the feel of her hands batting against him, his ministrations faltered and he withdrew his hands from beneath the skirt of her dress. 

Basch tore his mouth away from hers.

His face was red too, his brow drawn into its usual serious furrow. 

“ _Please_.”

She had never heard him beg before – how was she expected to know how to deny him?

She threw her arms around his neck, and his mouth crashed against hers again with renewed fervor. His arms were iron around her, crushing her against him. His hands went up to the back of her bra and twisted until there was a snap. 

She gasped, surprised as the pressure at her chest suddenly relaxed – now she _really_ couldn’t leave the bathroom. He hooked a finger between the two cups and wrenched it down. Her bare breasts pressed against the front of his shirt, the material teasing her nipples taut.

She mewled at the contact, practically melting in his arms. 

When her head fell back, Basch didn’t miss the opportunity to swoop in for her throat, brandishing a series of kisses. She felt a sting where he sucked at the sensitive flesh, and she jolted in his grasp. This only seemed to egg him on, and he jerked his hips against her, grinding his erection against her lap.

She felt the sting of him at her neck again and she whimpered.

“Just how many- _ah!_ – marks are you leaving on me?”

He sunk his teeth lightly into her neck, before soothing the bite with the flat of his tongue. It was so unlike lovemaking with him had ever been before. Her panties were soaked by now, and even without the tightness of her stockings, she was sure they would’ve clung to her.

Basch’s eyes peeked up from below her, disinterested in answering her question.

“I thought you were worried about him hearing us.”

The thought of Alfred out there, listening to her moans, not knowing how her breasts were bared and her lipstick was smeared, her neck littered with love bites only made her want to have even more to hide.

She let Basch slam her up against the bathroom door with a loud thud – there was no way Alfred _hadn’t_ heard that.

His kisses were bruising; she was numb, her lips sensitive after his onslaught of sharp, biting ministrations. His taste was sharp and clean, and while she adored skating the intensity of his eyes from this proximity, like a sexy, teasing game of tag, of having his full attention for the first time in one felt like forever, there were other things she wanted to use her mouth for.

Her hands braced firmly against Basch’s chest, pushing him away. 

When she met his eyes, she could see a glimmer of hurt. Did she really not want him as he wanted her?

She pressed a soft kiss to him, intended to reassure, though she slipped out of his grasp before he could hold her to it, sinking down on her knees.

The tile was hard and cold. The vague discomfort was dispelled as his hands found her hair, smoothing it back and tucking a lock of it behind her ear. 

This was, surprisingly, a major phrase in Basch’s love language – an act of tenderness that was as practical as it was sentimental. It was one of those affectionate breadcrumbs he dropped for her on days she worried that she was having an affair with a man who was married to his work.

The bulge in his trousers was inches away from her nose and she reached up to undo the zipper. She withheld the urge to nuzzle into his crotch, instead, settling for peeking up at him through her lashes, biting softly at her bottom lip.

His eyes were transfixed as he watched her pull his cock out.

She shifted closer to him, rising on her knees to have more control. 

With this movement, the tip of him brushed against her cheek and he grunted. She caught his scent – sharp and musky, curling around her. 

She took him in her mouth, keeping her eyes locked on him as she did so. The solemnity of his expression melted just the tiniest bit, his brow twitching and pulling into an agonized furrow as he groaned. 

Spurred on by his favorable reaction, she moved faster, bobbing at him, hollowing her cheeks. 

" _Oh_ -"

When she was pulling away, she had her tongue trace the thick vein running along the underside of his length. She ground the flat of her tongue against his tip, teasing him, before taking him in her mouth again, as much as she could. One hand wrapped around his base, covering where she couldn’t reach – the other stroked gently at his balls, wanting to overwhelm him as he had her.

A smeared red – her lipstick – ringed his cock.

Basch had one hand braced at the door to steady himself, the other one remaining at her hair. His grip on her tightened and he tugged lightly. She hummed her approval at the sensation, the faint sting at her scalp feeding the wetness between her legs. Her voice vibrated around him, making his arousal flare.

So enraptured by the salty taste to him on her tongue and the image of him burying himself in another part of her, that she didn’t expect when he thrust abruptly into her mouth. The tip of him brushed the back of her throat.

Her eyes watered and she gagged a little; Basch eased up at once.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his cheeks burning.

She knew him well enough that this was one of the reasons why he kept his relationship with sex at an arm’s length; though he was skilled at a great many things, he was still clumsy at physical intimacy. Things like this embarrassed him; he was afraid of being a bad lover, and so rather than risk earning the title, he thought it better to take himself out of the running entirely.

That wouldn’t do for her. 

She relaxed her throat muscles and took him again in his entirety. 

Her hand at his base had gone to where her hand at his balls was, fondling gently. Basch groaned, his head falling back.

She bobbed at a more rigorous pace, wanting to prove to him that what he wanted had been okay – it had just taken her by surprise. 

She blinked up at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners, trying to convey her acceptance, trying to tell him that his wants could be her wants too.

Slowly but surely, she felt him relax back into the sensation of her sucking him off. His hand at her hair trailed softly at her cheek, the pad of his thumb stroking gently in gratitude before returning to her hair.

He gripped her again and hesitantly moved his hips. 

She was ready this time and took him well. When he saw this, he pumped a little faster, fucking her mouth a little rougher. 

All this was more than enough to send him hurtling after his release, but it had been a long time since he’d made love with her. He wanted to see more of what her body had to offer, past the sad remnants of her dress flapping helplessly around her breasts.

The hand at her hair moved again, dropping to her chin. He squeezed her – just hard enough to get her attention. She looked up at him, never breaking her pace.

“Lift your dress for me.”

His voice was gruff, meeting his insecurity at issuing such commands with false bravado.

Her hands left him and obediently went to the skirt of her dress. 

She gathered it up to her hips. 

While normally he rather liked the look of her in stockings and panties, here, they only got in the way.

Basch made a frustrated noise at the back of his throat and gently removed himself from her mouth. Her lips quirked downwards in a petulant frown as he knelt beside her, his cock still out and hard.

His fingers reached for her thighs and pinched the netty material of her hosiery between two certain fingers. With one sharp motion, he ripped a hole into it. Hooking his fingers inside, he easily made the hole bigger, running it past her crotch.

She watched him, the sight of him ruining her clothes as she wore them only making her feel like every nerve was exposed to him and wanting. The sensations of the fabric shifting across her skin, the patches of bareness, all singing with the potential of when the heat of his touch could come and dispel it – it was driving her nuts. She was overwhelmed by the urge to see him taking her with viciousness and protecting her as his all at once.

Basch stood again, and her lips found his length. 

“Now-“ His voice broke off. She could tell he was having difficulty controlling himself as her lips slipped over him. 

“Touch yourself.”

Her eyes widened.

He had never watched her do anything like that before – usually, when she did, it was because his work was keeping him from bed. Her eyes stung a little, her heart sticking in her throat.

She could feel her breathing roughen; it felt like her skin was on fire.

She kept her movements over his cock, and without breaking her pace, one shaking hand left her skirt, bunched at her hips, and delved down to her panties. Basch watched her, his face unchanging and intense.

She traced her middle finger delicately, experimentally, over the crotch of her panties, tracing the seam of her cunt through it. The soft material was practically silk when imbued with her slick.

She sighed, the small touch bringing on another wave of wetness. 

She clenched emptily.

She hooked her finger around the crotch of her panties and dragged it to the side, baring her dripping sex. Unable to meet Basch’s eyes, but feeling them on her none the less, she dragged her same finger gently over her clit in small flitted movements. 

Immediately, the pleasure that shot through her was so intense, her legs shook.

Basch could feel her stutter on him.

“Mm. You look like you’ve had practice.”

Her cheeks warmed at this. She had gotten good at hiding her pleasures beneath the blankets, even when he was fast asleep beside her.

Switching out her middle finger with her thumb, she reached down with two fingers and tested them at her entrance. There was very little resistance, and with her thumb working at her clit, there was practically none.

She moaned, the sound shooting up his cock. Basch wanted nothing more than to slip his hands in her hair again for better leverage, but he couldn’t possibly tear his eyes away from how her fingers slipped into her. Even from above, he could hear how wet she was with each pump of her hand.

He thrust his hips at a slower pace from before, helping her maintain her rhythm as her own pleasure distracted her. He fucked her mouth slowly, watching her hand. She was gradually starting to pump faster and faster. 

Basch noticed how gentle she was when she touched herself and he felt a rush of shame. Had he ever touched her like that? 

If he dared to venture into his own memory, which for all it lacked naked images of his lover, made up for it with accuracy, he was either vicious or almost clinically methodical.

She let out a little whine and her hand quickened. Basch froze, watching. He could tell something was happening – was she really so near already?

She had only just started touching herself. Though she’d had him steadily moving towards his own release, he didn’t seem to be coming undone quite like she was. 

Her brow drew into an almost agonized furrow, her lips parted soundlessly. She seemed to arch into her own touch, her breasts thrust out and trembling with the pleasure that wracked her entire body. Beneath her, he could make out a few gleaming spots of her wetness on the tile. She really was dripping.

The heat at her skin prickled, and she clenched around her fingers, realizing she was coming in front of him at her own hands.

Before she could feel properly embarrassed by it, her release yanked her under and her mind turned to dead air.

She moaned again, the sound vibrating pleasantly around his hard length. She shook as she clenched haphazardly around her fingers, her pumping never ceasing as she worked herself through her orgasm. Her body thrummed, and under her lover’s careful watch, the release felt more intense. 

It was so erotic that even when she felt herself emerge from the other side, she felt her hypersensitive, soaked walls crave the drag of something thicker and girthier than her own fingers. She ached to have her release unfurl as she lay beneath him, with his lips at her skin, and him inside of her.

“Enough,” he grunted.

Basch pulled himself from her mouth.

For a moment, she thought he was angry as he pulled her to her feet. Her legs felt like jello and she wavered in his arms.

Her eyes dropped to his arousal, which bobbed, still achingly hard between his legs and smeared with her lipstick. 

She thought maybe he was frustrated at not having found his own release yet.

He dragged her over to the sink and pressed her against it, her hips feeling the bite of the cold porcelain, her hands braced at the sides of the bowl.

Basch brought his hips against her ass, and she could feel the hardness of his erection against the cleft of her buttocks. He must’ve been painfully hard now. Basch ground against her, his hands reaching around to the front of her. 

He opened the loose, ragged lips of her dress more, pulling her breasts out from behind the tattered curtains of fabric. 

She watched, mesmerized, and achy as he squeezed her breasts, fingers splaying before letting them drop. He loved the motion of her body, the feminine space it took up, and the soft give of her in his hands; he thought maybe he ought to tell her that more often.

“I’m going to put it in now.”

She leaned forward, jutting her ass out to meet him halfway as he looked down to palm his length and guide it into her entrance. At the feel of his engorged tip pressing into her, her head dropped back and she let out a small, breathy moan. 

“Mm.”

_You like that?_

It’s what he had intended to say, though, despite his throbbing need for her and the fever burning inside of him, his voice was not as certain as his pounding arousal. What came out instead was:

“Do you like it?”

Which was gut-wrenchingly close to the question he really wanted an answer to; ‘ _Do you like me?_ ’

The question almost angered her and so as he slipped inside of her, she made sure she took him with a sweet vengeance. She squeezed around him, demolishing his pride and resolve with relish. 

How could he even ask that? After so many nights of her mourning the empty space in the bed beside her, she thought he had no right. 

She didn’t answer and this seemed to flare his temper, as reactive as a livewire. One hand dug into her hip, a painful, pinched grip. The other went to her jaw again and squeezed, forcing her to look at their reflection above the sink. 

His angry, vicious kisses went back to her neck, burning her.

“Look at yourself,” he commanded in a low voice.

She lolled a glassy-eyed look to her reflection, and for a moment a spark of envy leaped up in her at the sight of another woman in Basch’s arms.

Certainly, that couldn’t have been her – Basch had never touched _her_ like that, after all.

Her breasts hung out of the front of her dress, which she was sure was ruined by now, missing buttons. Her nipples looked puffed and hard. Her hair was strewn in a fuzzy halo of flyaways and cowlicks from how Basch had tangled his fingers in it. 

He hilted inside of her and the movement ricocheted through her, shifting her entire body – hips, breasts, face.

He started an even pace, the wet sound of her receiving him melting into the rhythm of the slap of their skin. The woman in the mirror moaned at the pleasure that she reeled with.

A red smear trailed from her lips and onto her face.

Her mascara blotted racoony shadows around her eyes. 

She was a mess. 

She wondered if Basch’s order was meant to humiliate her.

He reached around to where her skirt rode up at her waist. His fingers found her wet folds and immediately delved into them, smoothing a luxurious, back and forth that had her jolting as he fucked her.

At her reaction, he thrust faster, harder. His erection felt like it was spearing into her – he’d been hard and waiting for a while. 

The drag of him against her walls had a growing warmth pooling at the pits of their stomachs. He thrust relentlessly, in heated pursuit of his own orgasm. His fingers, dexterous and knowledgeable themselves, even if his lovemaking was a little clumsy, found her clit. 

His fingers played her with focused ambition that was foreign to her; it wasn’t only her pleasure he was stoking, but his pride.

He jerked his hand against her, the touch gentle enough to coax pleasure that made her convulse in his arms, but his rhythm flitted and jarring enough to pack a punch.

Her resolve crumbled rather easily too, so it seemed.

The remnants of her earlier climax had left her sensitive to him, and so it was with no surprise that she felt herself approaching her release again. 

He could sense this too, in the way she clenched around him haplessly. 

He thrust into her hard and she felt the pinch of the sink against her. 

She yelped and clenched around him again; this time it was prolonged and her entire body seemed to pull taut. She stiffened, forming a white-knuckled grip on the sink.

She tore her eyes away from her reflection, unable to look directly at the intensity of how her body reacted. It was a bit like looking directly at the sun in that regard. Her eyes fluttered shut and the tension in her arms became too much. She trembled and felt herself crumble. 

Basch was right behind her. At the feeling of her tight heat he gave another twitch and had exactly enough time to thrust once more, a half-hearted little buck into her before he spilled his seed. 

Then, he sagged against her, his breathing rough. His forehead fell against her shoulder, his frame leaning heavily on her. She could feel the sweaty, clammy heat that had collected between them, even though they were still more or less clothed.

His sight fell downward; he could make out the white dribbles of his spend at her legs.

Basch pressed a kiss at where her neck met her shoulder and tasted the salt at her skin.

He straightened up and took stock of the woman in his arms; tired, sweaty, and disheveled. 

He slid out of her, his ego again swelling at the tired, little whine she let out as he did so. His hands went to her elbows and Basch turned her around in his steadying grip.

She looked at him, her eyes a little bleary from fatigue, and a little sad from something else he’d been only all too content to turn away from in the months they’d been together.

His eyes softened, though it was too fresh for her to trust it completely. Basch touched her face again, gentle this time, as he brought the pad of his thumb to where her lipstick had smudged past the outline of her lips. He rubbed it away, carefully, his admiring eyes and the focus of his movement not so different from the way an artist might put the finishing touches on his work.

Her face warmed. She felt…dirty. Improper. 

She wasn’t sure if she could handle the cold flip of his personality again, especially like this, when she had to make the walk of shame from the bathroom down the hall, potentially past Alfred, and to their bedroom.

She looked away and her arms came up to cross over her chest in meager protection.

Basch let go of her to tuck himself back into his trousers, and she half expected him to leave the bathroom, with maybe a reassurance that she wouldn’t be bothered if she wanted to clean up a little.

Instead, his arms were around her again, pulling her into him by the small of her back. 

Her pulse sped up; she wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t usually in the mood for ‘snuggling’ or anything of the like, after sex. 

One arm still at the bend of her back, his other one came up to her face and stroked gently along her jaw. 

He waited until she was willing to risk a glimpse his way again. When she did, she felt as fragile as glass; even breathing made her feel vulnerable.

“You’re lovely,” he said, his cheeks reddening a bit.

His brow furrowed in that serious way it did, but he never looked away. 

“And I’m sorry if I don’t tell you that often enough.”

She leaned against him, suddenly feeling very, very tired. Her lower lip trembled slightly and she buried her face into his shoulder. His other arm wrapped around her too and they stayed like that for a little while.

It was said heaven could be anywhere, though a bathroom seemed like a particularly strange place for it.

When a knock came at the door, they startled in each other’s arms, both looking at the door with wide-eyed stares. The click of the knob being tried and stopped by the lock frayed her nerves.

Alfred’s voice shattered the quiet sanctity in the bathroom.

“You guys done yet? Or is there another bathroom I can use?”


End file.
